


Sounds Like A Plan

by Twice_before_Friday



Series: Bad Things Happen (again and again and again) [5]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Bad Ideas, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Frostbite, Gen, Major Character Injury, Office Supplies, restrained
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: For the Bad Things Happen square: FrostbiteDani squints at him, quite obviously expecting whatever plan he's concocting to be dangerous. Which is a little unfair, he thinks to himself. Yes, some of his ideas may entail an element of danger, but they're dealing with killers who, more often than not, are desperate, obsessed with their missions, or both. An element of danger is sort of a given.
Series: Bad Things Happen (again and again and again) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741687
Comments: 26
Kudos: 71





	Sounds Like A Plan

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something a little different with this one, hopefully it turned out okay!
> 
> Thank you, Kate, for looking this over.

Everything goes to shit the minute they walk through the door.

The discreetly placed surveillance eludes all of their gazes as they silently breach the antiquated home, warped with age and fallen into disrepair through years of neglect. Gil gestures forward with two quick jerks of his hand to send JT and Dani in first, following close on their heels himself. A stern look at Bright clearly conveys the order to stay put on the front stoop.

Malcolm, as always, disregards the command. 

He waits only a matter of seconds before he follows the team into the house, sidestepping the shoes that litter the front entry. Taking in the varying shoe sizes and the variety of jackets hanging on the tree rack, the house appears to be occupied by a family of four, likely a mother, father, and two children. He sends a silent prayer to whomever might be listening that the children aren't currently at home.

He bypasses a small catch-all table just beyond the entryway, noting the two sets of house keys in a small bowl with an uneasiness that he can't quite put his finger on. The entry opens into a small living room, three dinner plates and a mess of school worksheets scattered on the coffee table in the middle of the room, flanked by a love seat on one side and two arm chairs on the other. By the looks of it, the home has been unoccupied for a few days, maybe even as much as a week, judging by the hardened and dried out spaghetti on the dinner plates. The exact amount of time since the murders began.

Malcolm notes the way JT and Dani move up the stairs at the side of the room with a speed and stealth born of years of practice, moving in tandem, perfectly in sync with one another. Gil, meanwhile, pushes through the swinging door into the kitchen, gun raised and at the ready, leaving Malcolm alone in the living room.

Spinning slowly to take in the room and glean what insights he can, a glint of light in the corner of the room catches Malcolm's eye. He makes his way over, clocking it as a security camera just as he hears a thump from upstairs that sounds suspiciously like a body hitting the floor.

Everything happens in a matter of seconds after that, though it feels like time has slowed, become viscous and difficult to wade through. The door to the kitchen swings open and Gil stumbles onto the room, trying to prop himself up on the door frame, his body crumpling towards the ground as Malcolm watches.

"Run," Gil bites out as his knees hit the floor, looking at Malcolm with panic shining bright and urgent in his eyes, even as he clearly struggles to keep them open.

It's too late.

As Malcolm takes an unsteady step towards Gil he feels his head begin to swim, vision blotting in and out as the room fades away around him. He's distantly aware of a pins-and-needles sensation in his arms and legs before they go numb and he collapses to the floor, mere feet from where Gil is still struggling to drag himself forward.

The last thing he sees before he's unwillingly heaved away from consciousness is Gil's guilt ridden gaze sweeping over him, regret and apology sitting heavy on the lines of his face.

\---

He's genuinely shocked when he wakes up — groggy and with a pounding head, but alive nonetheless.

He truly believed that he'd finally reached the end of his journey. After years of close calls and reckless self-endangerment, he was surprisingly unsurprised to discover that his life was going to end in pursuit of a suspect. His only regret, really, was that the team was going down with him.

Waking up, therefore, is a pleasant but unexpected turn of events.

Waking up to see Dani, slumped on a chair on the opposite side of a desk from him, is even better. Though unconscious, her chest rises and falls in a slow and steady measure that floods Malcolm with an intense relief.

"Dani," he croaks, mouth feeling cottony and still slightly numb.

It's not just his mouth, either. His limbs are heavy in a way that feels drug induced and he spares a moment to wonder what exactly they were dosed with before he tries to pull himself up. The attempt is futile, as he quickly discovers his arms are restrained behind the chair, yanking his shoulders back forcefully enough that he questions if the numbness is an effect of the sedative alone.

When he attempts to kick a foot out to see about standing up, it jerks painfully on his already strained shoulder and he cries out at the sharp twinge that spikes through the joint. He stills his movements completely, waiting for the pain to abate before he tries anything else, cycling a few therapeutic breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth to speed the process along. Once the pain has faded to a dull ache, he cranes his neck to look over the back of the chair.

His hands are chained together, but the chain doesn't just wrap around his wrists. It runs down the length of the chair and tucks underneath, and though Malcolm can't see it, he's sure it's wrapped around his ankles as well.

"Dani?" he tries calling out again, but she appears to be out for the count. Taking a second to really look at how she's positioned, though, leads him to believe she's restrained in much the same way he is, though her chair appears to be stationary while his is a rolling desk chair. "Shit."

Taking one more deep breath, this time to focus his mind on the situation they've found themselves in, Malcolm turns his attention to the room around him. It's a home office, clearly, and based on the drab shade of brown on the walls and inexpensive carpet on the floor — both of which match the decor of the living room he'd been in when everything went sideways — they're still in the suspect's house. 

The desk between him and Dani is a heavy oak monstrosity, probably passed down with the house to successive owners in order to avoid moving it. There's a laptop set up on the side of the desk, a bright pink sticky note on the screen saying _play me_. He's not sure if the note is for them or for whoever will be finding their bodies, since there's no way for Malcolm or Dani to reach the keyboard and play the cued up video.

That's a problem for later, he decides.

If he twists in his chair, he can see a low filing cabinet behind him with all sorts of office supplies on top — a stapler, a container full of pens and pencils, a can of compressed air, several reams of paper, a ruler, a large pair of scissors. He eyes the scissors speculatively, coming to the conclusion that they would be useful if they can manage to get free, but will provide no help whatsoever in actually procuring said freedom.

A quiet groan draws his attention back to Dani, and he spins back in time to see her forehead crease with discomfort.

"Dani," he tries again. 

It takes several minutes of fighting the sedative for her to wake up, but when she does it's abrupt enough to startle him as she jerks in her chair. His suspicions that she's trussed up like him are confirmed when her sudden movement is met with a yelp and a curse before she stills herself and opens her eyes to look around. 

"Bright?" she whispers as she spots him, eyes blinking away the last of the sedative. "What the hell happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he says, attempting a small shrug that pulls painfully at his shoulder. "I'd wager the house was pumped full of some sort of gaseous sedative."

"Why would someone do that?" Dani asks.

Malcolm's unsure if she means the question rhetorically — a sort of 'what the fuck' — or if she's asking for more information as to their suspect's profile. He decides to assume it's the latter, solely because it will give him something to do.

"I'd wager he needs us alive for something," Malcolm says slowly, thinking it through. "The previous victims were all killed quickly, with no signs of being restrained or drugged. We don't fit his pattern."

"Is that a good thing?" Dani asks as she cranes her neck to look over the back of her chair, getting a good look at exactly what's binding her.

"Well, we're still alive," Malcolm says, with a tilt of his head, "so...yes?"

Dani levels him with a look that screams _no shit_ but presses on to more practical matters. "Any brilliant ideas as to how we can—"

"Bright!" 

Her words are cut off by a shout from down the hall.

"Powell! JT!"

Malcolm and Dani cast each other a relieved look as they both shout Gil's name in response.

"Are you okay?" Gil's voice floats to them without the sharp edge of panic now that he knows at least two of his team members are safe.

"Dani and I are both fine," Malcolm responds when he receives a nod from Dani. "We're restrained, but uninjured. You?"

"Same thing here, kid," Gil grunts and Malcolm can tell he's pulling at the chains that are binding him wherever he is. "Damn. I'm chained up pretty good. Don't know that I'm gonna be able to get free anytime soon."

"Is there a reason we're all yelling?" JT grumbles, much closer than Gil from the sounds of it, and far more displeased about the situation.

"JT." The relief in Gil's tone, knowing his whole team is alive, mirrors what Malcolm is feeling. "Are you hurt?"

There's a brief pause before JT answers, and Malcolm assumes he's doing a quick assessment of his surroundings and physical state.

"I'm okay. Took a knock to the head, but I think it's from when I fell. What the hell happened? And why am I chained to the banister?"

Malcolm runs through the profile in his head, trying to make sense of the situation while Gil, Dani, and JT all discuss where they're being held (Gil is in a kid's bedroom next to the office while JT is in the hallway between the two rooms). Their suspect works at a medical supply warehouse, which explains his access to whatever compound knocked them out so efficiently, but it doesn't explain why he did it in the first place. Why not just kill them when he had the chance?

Except the four victims have all been connected to the medical supply company that the suspect works for. There's clearly a reason that he chose the victims he did, and murdering a team of detectives doesn't fit his MO. That's not to say he won't kill them anyways, to cover his tracks or buy himself some time to continue on his mission, though. It just means that they have a brief reprieve before the killer realizes how screwed he is and comes back to eliminate the witnesses.

They need to get free. Now.

"—suggestions how to get out?" Gil is asking as Malcolm shakes himself from his thoughts, an idea forming in his head.

"Uh. I might have a plan," Malcolm says, turning in his chair to look at the office supplies behind him once again. "I'm not entirely sure it'll work, but it's worth a shot."

Dani squints at him, quite obviously expecting whatever plan he's concocting to be dangerous. Which is a little unfair, he thinks to himself. Yes, some of his ideas may entail an element of danger, but they're dealing with killers who, more often than not, are desperate, obsessed with their missions, or both. An element of danger is sort of a given.

"What's the plan, kid?" Gil's voice contains the same level of suspicious concern as Dani's look did, and Malcolm bites back an annoyed huff at the reaction, recognizing that now is not the time to discuss their apparent scepticism in his strategic tactics.

"There's a can of compressed air here," he says, swiveling as best he can in the chair towards the cabinet behind him. "If I can somehow get a hold of it, I think I can use it to get free."

The chains, while effective in restraining them, are not especially thick. He thinks that, maybe, if he can freeze the metal using the liquid in the can — and then smash the chain against the filing cabinet behind him — he'll be able to free himself from the chair.

"What are you gonna do, bro? Blow your skinny ass out of the chair?" JT grumbles from the hallway. The sound of chains rattling against the wooden bannister chases the words into the office.

"Have you ever accidentally sprayed one of those cans upside down?" Malcolm asks, the words coming in short bursts as he heaves his body back and forth, carefully, in the chair, forcing it to roll back against the cabinet.

"Yeah, it gets cold," Dani nods, following his line of thinking. "Really cold."

"Right. It's not actually air inside the can at all. It's liquid under pressure," Malcolm says, attempting to lean forward enough to get the ruler near the edge into his mouth. He has to stop only inches away when the strain on his shoulders becomes too much. "If you hold the can upright, as directed, you spray the vapour from the top of the can. If you turn it upside down, you get the liquid."

Malcolm leans back in the chair, giving his aching joints a chance to rest while he figures out how to get the compressed air.

"Basically," he continues, "the liquid boils when exposed to room temperature, then cools rapidly, which freezes whatever you spray it on."

"And you think that you can freeze the chain and break it?" Dani finishes, excitement about the plan overtaking her skepticism.

"Hopefully," Malcolm says, looking over to where she's sitting up a little straighter, trying to see the can that might hold the key to their freedom where it sits innocuously behind him. "But I need to get my hands on it first."

He leans forward again, straining to get to the ruler, knowing it's the only way he's going to get the can to the edge of the filing cabinet. Once again, his feet pull back beneath the chair to give him a little more leeway to lean in, but he's still a couple of inches away. Before he can second guess himself, he jerks himself forward, wrenching his right shoulder from it's socket with a sickening pop. The maneuver allows him to bridge the last few inches, though, and he manages to get the ruler in between his teeth.

He's thankful for the wooden ruler as his teeth clench against the white hot pain that lances through his shoulder and down his arm like a wildfire spreading through his nerves. He makes a valiant attempt to swallow down the shout that tries to break through, but a groan slips out against his will, and Gil and JT's worried shouts follow immediately afterwards.

"Kid, what happened?"

"Bright, man, you good?"

He leans back in the chair, sucking in heaving breaths through his nose, mindful of the fact that he absolutely cannot afford to drop the ruler from his mouth.

"Uh, I think he dislocated his shoulder," Dani grimaces as she calls out to the team, then drops her voice as she asks, "Bright, are you okay?"

A few more lungfuls of air and he's able to manage a tight, "Mmhmm." He gives himself a moment longer but knows that he needs to move quickly; his arm will begin swelling soon, which will make what he needs to do even more difficult. He pries his eyes open and turns his attention to the compressed air.

"Bright, are you good?" Gil nearly shouts, "Powell, what the hell is going on?"

"He's working on it. Give him a minute," she calls out, trying to allay Gil's worries without distracting Malcolm from his task.

He appreciates it more than he can say. It's taking all of his focus to line the ruler up behind the can at just the right height to slide the can forward without tipping it over. If it rolls off the desk, it's game over. It takes a minute — and a few close calls that leave him and Dani gasping as the can teeters and threatens to tip — but he gets it to the edge of the cabinet. He pushes it far enough that it hangs nearly halfway off of the edge, precariously balanced and ready to drop. He carefully pulls his head away and spins the chair so his back is to the cabinet, his hands straining back to grab it but stopping short just below the top of the cabinet, not quite high enough to reach.

He sighs and bumps his chair back against the cabinet, causing the can to tip forward against the back of his chair. 

He and Dani both hold their breath as he wiggles the chair forward, putting enough space between the cabinet and the chair that the can slips down between the two, right into his waiting hands. The relief hits him like a tidal wave, so overwhelming that he's afraid he may just drop it after all.

"He got it," Dani calls out, sounding as relieved as he feels.

"Good job, man," JT calls from the hall.

Malcolm very, _very_ carefully maneuvers the can in his hand so that it's upside down. He realizes immediately, though, that he's overlooked something.

Because of the way he needs to hold the can to pull the trigger, the nozzle where the liquid will be coming out is pressed between the chain and the back of his hand. It will freeze the chain, thankfully, but it's going to freeze his skin, too.

He's suddenly glad he hasn't spit the ruler out yet.

"Bright, what's wrong?" Dani asks, reading his facial expressions easily after all this time.

He can't answer her and keep the ruler in his mouth, so he looks her in the eye in apology and pulls the trigger on the can, shooting the liquid onto the chain and his skin at the same time.

It takes a second for the burning sensation to kick in. 

When it does, it's excruciating.

Considering he's in the process of suffering second or third degree frostbite, it feels an awful lot like his skin is being scalded off by the steady stream as it sprays onto the metal. The pain is acute and intense and steals his breath away, making it impossible to scream. The can begins to freeze in his hand, but he refuses to let go, holding tight to the trigger and doing his best to ignore what feels like flames lapping at his left hand, idly wondering if his skin has been peeled away.

Eventually the can drops from his hand, unable to hold out against the pain any longer, despite his mind yelling at him to press on. The sudden cessation of freezing/burning is a shock to his system and he finally lets out a primal howl of pain, the ruler slipping from his mouth and clattering to the floor, deep divots from his teeth indenting the wood.

A chorus of concerned voices shout his name all at once, but Malcolm ignores them all to focus on breaking the chain while it's weakened with frost. He twists his chair and then throws his weight against the back, rolling it hard into the filing cabinet, smashing the chain and his damaged hand at the same time.

"Jesus! Bright, stop!" Dani calls out as he whimpers at the next two strikes against the cabinet, but it's not until the fifth blow that the frozen link of the chain shatters and the chains slither away to the floor.

The silence — after the banging of his chair, after the shouts and cries that escaped through gritted teeth — is nearly deafening.

"What the hell is happening in there?" Gil's bellows, voice cutting through the tense stillness as Dani stares at Malcolm in open-mouthed shock. Malcolm squeezes his eyes shut tight as his arms fall to the sides of the chair, the blood rush from the change in position making his shoulder and hand feel infinitely worse. He hears Dani call out in response to Gil, but he's too lost in the pain to really note what she says.

With his right shoulder dislocated and his left hand frostbitten and bruised, Malcolm wants nothing more than to sit still and let the pain subside, but none of them know when the killer is going to return, or if he's even left the house at all. He needs to move.

He kicks the chains from his feet and stands up, holding his right arm against his abdomen with his left hand, refusing to look down at the damage.

"Jesus Christ," Dani mutters under her breath as Malcolm makes his way over and she catches sight of his hand. Malcolm drops down to his knees beside her and bends at the waist to look under her chair, finding that the chains are connected with nothing more than standard zip ties.

He blows out a breath, realizing that it's going to be easier to get her free than he'd initially expected. He pushes back to his feet with a grunt and goes to grab the scissors from the cabinet, freezing when he reaches out and catches sight of the back of his hand.

It's red and raw and layers of skin are peeling away in several sections, exposing the tender flesh below. It's also already swelling from smashing up against the cabinet. Repeatedly.

"You good?" Dani's quiet voice floats to him from across the office.

The worry lacing the two simple words is enough to shake him into action, grasping the scissors carefully, attempting to limit any movement that might stretch the skin on the back of his hand. He makes his way back to Dani and lowers himself to his knees, grimacing as he realizes he'll need to shift the scissors to his right hand in order to use them.

He's barely able to move his shoulder and has to use his aching left hand to steady his arm as he cuts through the zip ties at the base of the chair. As soon as the last one is cut and the chains begin to unravel from Dani's writs and ankles, he lets his arms fall to his side with a bitten-off cry. The movement in his shoulder is barely tolerable; the throbbing ache in his hand that beats in time with his heart is so much worse. 

Dani falls to her knees next to him as soon as she's free, cool hands cradling his face.

"What the hell, Bright?" The harsh words are softened by her obvious concern. "We could have found a better way to get one of us free."

He offers her a soft smile that smoothes out a few of the lines creasing her forehead. "I'm fine," he says quietly, "go help Gil and JT."

He shifts himself to sit on the floor, leaning up against the desk as soon as she gently removes the scissors from his hand and heads out into the hallway. He pulls his right arm close to his body and holds it tightly, letting his eyes slip closed as he knocks his head back against the hard wood behind him. 

It feels like only a matter of seconds before Gil is down on one knee in front of him, a warm hand wrapped around the nape of his neck, worried brown eyes staring into his as soon as he forces his eyelids open.

"Hey there, city boy." Gil's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, but Malcolm appreciates his efforts nonetheless. "Powell says you went and did something stupid again."

"It worked," he says simply, the fact that Gil is kneeling in front of him proof enough that his plan was a success. 

Gil reaches out and gingerly lifts Malcolm's frostbitten hand, holding him lightly by the wrist, palms pressed together as he scowls at the mess of raw skin. "Yeah, kid. It worked," Gil doesn't sound nearly as pleased about it as Malcolm thinks he should.

"Boss?" JT's voice surprises Malcolm. He hadn't heard the man come into the room. "Looks like the killer left us a video."

"Stay put," Gil says to Malcolm, his tone brooking no argument. He carefully lowers Malcolm's hand before he pushes to his feet and joins JT and Dani on the other side of the desk. "Hit it."

Malcolm can't see the video from where he's sitting, but he closes his eyes and listens to the killer's confession as to why he killed the first four victims, and why he was heading to the warehouse to blow it up before the company could ruin anymore lives, before they could steal away someone else's wife or the mother of someone else's kids.

It's a blur of movement in the room after that, all three of the detectives pulling out their phones to call for back-up and warn security at the warehouse to evacuate immediately.

By the time the ambulance arrives and the paramedics are crouched around Malcolm, wrapping up his hand, they receive word that the suspect has been apprehended, with enough explosive ordnance to take down several city blocks.

"Hey, man," JT says from behind the paramedic that's setting Malcolm's arm in a sling, leaving the shoulder to be reduced at the hospital. He looks down at Malcolm with his arms crossed firmly over his broad chest, but with something that Malcolm thinks looks suspiciously like pride in his eyes. "You did good. Fifteen minutes longer and we'd be dealing with a crater on 49th Street."

"See," Malcolm says, offering a tired but genuine smile to the detective. "I have good plans."

"Yeah, dude," JT huffs a laugh. "But your next bright idea better include a trip to the hospital."

A quick glance down at his heavily bandaged left hand and his right arm in a sling tells him that JT might just be onto something. 

"Sounds like a plan."


End file.
